Jax's Heart, Tara's Hands
by adavisa
Summary: Inspired by the song Mine Again by Black Lab. Tara holds Jax's heart in her hands and he prays she'll come back some day.
_Every day I will wait_

 _Till you're mine again  
I will die every day  
Till you're mine again  
There's no words to explain  
No beginning and no end  
I will dream, I will pray  
You'll be mine again_

The Black Lab lyrics floated out his open window as Jax sat on the roof smoking a joint. Tara had left him that morning and his head was all over the place. For weeks, she had begged him to join her, reminded him that he was smart enough to do so much more than shoddy mechanic work at TM and run guns for the MC. One day she had finally stopped begging and he assumed that meant she was staying. This morning, she proved him the fool.

His girl, and she would always be that, was a smart girl. Too smart for this small town. Too smart for the MC life. Too smart to sit around the clubhouse being his old lady. His girl, who believed in him, believed that he could make a difference, had finally given up. She was too bright, too beautiful to be suffocated in this small town outlaw life that he chose.

He prayed to a god that he didn't believe in, "Please put her in my arms again. Please bring her back to me. Please, please make her mine again." Night after night, week after week, month after month, he prayed that same prayer.

He went to work the next day, changing brake pads, fixing bumpers, replacing headlights; but the only pictures he saw in his head were Tara Grace Knowles. That beautiful red dress she wore on their first real date flashed through his mind. He saw her laying back in the grass the first time they'd made love, out in a field in the middle of nowhere. His heart clenched painfully, like she was squeezing it in her beautiful hands. He grabbed a joint from his cigarette pack and lit it up while he was flushing a radiator. Gemma would bitch if she smelled it, but he was beyond giving a shit.

He went through the motions every day. Day in and day out he went to work, did whatever the club told him to, and every night he drowned himself in booze, weed, and pussy. Every nameless, faceless woman that made their way through his bed was just a poor substitute for the woman he wanted. He tried and tried, endlessly, to disconnect from her but he couldn't. His heart was, and would always be, in her hands.

He heard through the grapevine that she was a successful surgeon in Chicago, saving the lives of tiny babies and his heart clenched again. Even after eight years, he still dreamed and prayed that she would be his again. His mind still betrayed him daily, random thoughts of her popping into his head like photographs in a slideshow. Even riding his Harley didn't help, because then he could feel her arms wrapped around him, holding him tight as they tore through the night air. Getting drunk only made things worse because when he wasn't in control of his thoughts, she flooded his memories, drowning him in lost love.

He married a crow eater, Wendy Case, because his mom was pressuring him to settle down, and because he was lonely. He was tired of his bed being cold, tired of being alone. Gemma had pressing for grandchildren before the ink had dried on the marriage license, but Jax wasn't keen on bringing a kid into the world with Wendy. She was a whore on her best days, a strung out, violent, crank addict on her worst. If he were being truly honest with himself, there was only one woman that he wanted to father children with.

Gemma got her wish one drunken night when they were out of condoms. Wendy was pregnant. He was only mildly convinced it was even his but he tried to do what was right. He sent club members by to check on her, made sure the bills were paid, made sure she went to her doctor's appointments, had a prospect follow her around to make sure she wasn't buying. Even Gemma did her part. She bought healthy food and made sure Wendy took her vitamins everyday. Jax couldn't even look at his wife anymore. Her growing stomach made him sick. He never wanted this with her. He married her to try and end the constant disconnect, but it hadn't helped. If anything, seeing her pregnant only reminded him of how much he was missing.

The day Gemma called, saying she had found Wendy convulsing on the kitchen floor and that they were at the hospital trying to save both her life and the baby's, he rushed to St. Thomas and it was like he slammed into a brick wall. There she was. His girl was back in Charming and she was cradling his son in her hands, whisking him away to the neonatal intensive care unit to be evaluated. He followed her, and her team of nurses, down the hall and watched through a glass wall as those beautiful hands, that he remembered so well, carefully checked his son from head to toe. There was something wrong with him, that much Jax knew. He was early, way too small and his abdomen was a mess.

Tara stepped into the hallway and spoke, "They're prepping him for emergency surgery. He has gastroschisis and a hole in his heart. They both need to be repaired immediately. He is very strong for a thirty week preemie, and I'm good at my job. I have to get back to him now but you need to go with the nurse and sign the consent forms so I can operate." She turned and went back through the double doors that led to where they were covering his son with monitors and inserting iVs. He watched her gentle hands as she helped the nurses prep the tiny baby, and his eyes only broke away when the nurse handed him the forms and showed him where to sign.

Tara and her team disappeared, running his son down the hall in the tiny rolling bed, off to repair the damage that his junkie mother had done to him. He watched them go, realizing that she now held his son's tiny heart in her hands physically, just as she had carried his own heart in her hands metaphorically, for the last ten years.

A few days later when she declared Abel "out of the woods," Jax pulled her to the side and wrapped his arms around her, breathing in the soft scent that was just her own scent, combined with the soap she used every morning. It threw him back to high school, like she was his again.

He poured his heart out to her, told her how miserable he'd been without her, how she still haunted his dreams, and was the only thing he prayed for. He begged her to take him back, but it wasn't needed. She had run back to Charming because she missed him. He held her heart as tightly as she held his own.

Jax grinned, "You're mine again."


End file.
